THEATER REVIEW: Horovitz play explores layers of emotion and revenge

Tuesday

Sep 1, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 1, 2009 at 1:20 AM

Past events revealed, future events hinted at, long-hidden resentments exploding into rage-fueled action, and all of it set right on the Gloucester waterfront. These are the elements of Gloucester Stage Company’s current production, Israel Horovitz’s intriguing drama “Sins of the Mother.”

Sally Applegate / Correspondent

Past events revealed, future events hinted at, long-hidden resentments exploding into rage-fueled action, and all of it set right on the Gloucester waterfront. These are the elements of Gloucester Stage Company’s current production, Israel Horovitz’s intriguing drama “Sins of the Mother.”

This production, running through Sept. 13, is part of the 70/70 Project, a worldwide festival of 70 productions of Horovitz plays in honor of his 70th birthday.

The gifted and prolific playwright has just been awarded France’s highest honor for a foreign artist, l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Horovitz is the most produced American playwright in the history of French Theater. He often returns to France and directs French-language productions of his many plays.

For 26 years, Horovitz served as artistic director of the theater he co-founded in Gloucester, as well as founding the New York Playwrights Lab.

Featuring a first-rate cast of four experienced actors, the current production fits comfortably into the intimate theater. The opening act, set in the union meeting room of a fish processing plant, employs the entire back wall of the theater in Jenna McFarland Lord’s set design.

Plaintive violin music sets the opening mood for each act, mixed with the occasional calls of a foghorn and seagulls.

Robert Walsh seems as comfortable and familiar as an old shoe in the humorous role of Bobby Maloney. The character is a rugged and self-assured man’s man, secure in his Gloucester environment, coming up with amusingly unsentimental dialog, interspersed with moments of great intensity and rage. You can’t help liking this guy, who turns out to be the one person who really knew and loved the woman in the play’s title.

Francisco Solorzano is handsome and intense as Douggie Shimmatarro, the son of that mother in the title. Returning to his old home ground after an absence of many years, Douggie is in for one shock after another as the play’s characters drop upsetting information about his mother.

Solorzano is touching as Douggie collapses on stage, saying of his dead mother, “I never really knew her — she never called me or nothing.” Solorzano has created several roles in Horovitz plays and is the executive director of the 70/70 Project.

David Nail is likable recreating his role as the hapless Dubbah Morrison, unwillingly dragged along as the other characters take their revenge on the Verga family.

As Frankie Verga, and later his twin brother Philly Verga, Christopher Whalen makes a convincingly dense and nasty Frankie, and later a complex and dangerous Philly. Whelan is also a veteran performer in Horovitz plays.

When Philly visits Bobby in Act II to help him mourn the passing of his wife, director Horovitz expertly employs awkward little silences between the two men. There are amusing double-takes of fear born of guilt, as Douggie and Bubbah each come in to see what looks, for all the world, like the departed Frankie sitting in Bobbie’s living room.

As Philly, Whalen ferrets out information on what really killed Frankie, often saying, “We do not need these people,” and finally suggesting it might be nice if Douggie and Bobby would finish the job they started with Frankie by also doing in Philly’s much-hated father.

Along with the sickness and death pervading this play’s plot are humorous lines and many local references that entertain the audience throughout the evening.

Philly and Bobby are featured in the show’s epilogue, delivering funeral sendoffs for someone else who has unexpectedly died. “We do not need these people who cause us pain — let them go,” says Philly to end the play.

The audience at the Sunday premiere gave the cast an enthusiastic standing ovation and an encore bow. Horovitz had an affectionate congratulatory hug for each member of his cast.

These performances offer local audiences a rare opportunity to see the famous playwright’s vision in its pure form, as both playwright and director of the production at Gloucester Stage.

Interested?

“Sins of the Mother” continues through Sept. 13 at the Gloucester Stage, 267 East Main St. in Gloucester. Evening performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday matinees are at 3 p.m. on Sept. 4 and Sept. 12, with Sunday matinees at 4 p.m. on Sept. 5 and Sept. 13.

Ticket prices are $37 for all performances. Senior citizen and student tickets are $32 for all performances.

For reservations or further information, call the Gloucester Stage Box Office at 978-281-4433, or visit gloucesterstage.org.